Brooks Koepka’s iron play has been exceptional since his much-anticipated return to the PGA Tour at the Farmers Insurance Open in January. So dialed has Koepka been with his approaches that he is leading the Tour in that strokes gained category, picking up a cool 1.089 shots against his opponents. “Ball-striking feels really, really good,” Koepka said Wednesday from the Texas Children’s Houston Open. “Everything’s trending in a nice direction.”
Well, not quite everything, because the consistency Koepka has exhibited from the fairway has not translated to the tee, from where he ranks 151st in driving accuracy (51.61%).
After signing for a third-round 71 at the Valspar last week, Koepka described his driving as “terrible.” On the par-4 10th hole, he pulled his tee shot into the trees, punched out and made bogey. On the par-4 16th, same thing — except that time it led to a double. “It really cost me,” Koepka said of his shaky driving. “Just put it in the worst place possible.”
Asked to explain his struggles, Koepka said, “I don’t know exactly what it is, I’ve tried different things that I know that I’m used to doing mechanically wrong, alignment, ball position, different things like that, and I don’t know, just can’t quite figure it out.”
On Sunday, Koepka shot another 71 and finished at four under for the week, seven back of winner Matt Fitzpatrick.
Sometime between the Valspar’s conclusion and Koepka’s Wednesday press conference in Houston, though, Koepka and his team did figure something out: his Titleist GT3 driver head was, as Koepka put it, “a little mashed.”
Driver heads commonly wear out on the world’s best players. The extreme speeds at which they swing their clubs paired with drivers’ ultra-thin faces means at some point something’s gonna give. Sometimes the aging materializes in obvious signs — i.e., a dent in the face — other times it’s more subtle. Koepka’s damage appeared to fall into the latter camp, but when he tested the club on a TrackMan unit in Houston on Tuesday, the numbers, he said, indicated there was a problem.
“It was a bit spinny,” he said. “I don’t know if it had a little crack in it or something was going wrong with it. We’ve got that sorted now. That cost me easily six, seven shots last week.”
If Koepka’s claim is true, he would have very much been in the mix last week. That’s also the goal this week in Houston, where Koepka is set to go off at 1:53 p.m. local time Thursday with Jake Knapp and Michael Thorbjornsen.
“I love the way I’m playing,” Koepka said. “Just want to put myself in contention here for the first time before Augusta.”
